Archive for the ‘IT Best Practices’ Category

Can you trust programs you download? Millions of users, including outsourced computer firms, use a program called CCleaner on their own and on customers’ computers. CCleaner just announced that some of its software was compromised and has been stealing data from users’ computers. Continue reading ‘Your Software, such as CCleaner, May Have Backdoors’

For those of you with Apple products, Apple just released some important updates.

Knowing that updates might cause a problem, please back up your computer first. You are backing up all the time already, right? Time Machine is a wonderful tool and is built in. If you want to supplement Time Machine with an additional backup, Carbon Copy Cloner from Bombich dot com is very popular and clients experience great results. You’ll need a couple of external USB drives, but the investment is worth it.

In case you are not familiar with how to apply patches, here are instructions:

On your Apple computer, even if your computer is set for automatic updates, it is good to verify that you have the most recent patches. Click on the image of the apple in the top left corner, and choose App Store. If not already selected, choose Updates inside the title bar that already contains the words: Featured, Top Charts, Categories, Purchased, and Updates. You may see many updates for your applications, and those are fine to apply, but the urgent one is the update called macOS Sierra Update and the version is 10.12.5. If you’ve not updated in a while, you may see other macOS updates too.

iPhone and iPad users, press on the Settings icon that looks like a gear. In the left-hand column, select General, and you’ll see Software Update on the right-hand column near the top. The most recent patch is for iOS 10.3.2.

If you want to configure automatic updates for your Apple computers, find instructions by searching for this phrase in Google: Automatic security updates os x site:apple.com

If you want to configure automatic updates for the iPhone and iPad, find instructions by searching for this phrase in Google: Automatic security downloads iOS site:apple.com

Please forward this to everyone you know who uses Apple devices and you want to help be more secure…

You’ve likely heard of the massive ransomware attack that has taken down so many organizations, including hospitals, around the world. The ransomware appears to have exploited a bug for which Microsoft released a fix a little over a month ago. Follow these 10 steps to help protect your organization from this, and from future attacks: Continue reading ‘Patching – 10 Steps to Seal the Holes in Your Armor’

We were flying at more than 500 mph, seven miles straight up. It was around 11 pm and we were over the Northern US during a snowstorm. The big explosion in the plane surprised everyone… Continue reading ‘The Jet Seemed to Explode’